American Military News by Peter Salter - Lincoln Journal Star May 03, 2022
Fully loaded with fuel, the KC-135R Stratotankers at the Nebraska Air National Guard Base can take off weighing more than 320,000 pounds and stay in the air for hours.
But one of them was recently grounded — and nearly sent to the scrapyard — by a broken, 2-pound piece of aluminum called a rudder snubber support fitting.
The base’s hydraulic crew discovered a crack and a misshapen bolt hole in the part while repairing a nearby leak late last year.
“They were looking at different hydraulic systems,” said Master Sgt. James Kenning, who runs the base’s Aircraft Metals Technology Shop. “And as they were cleaning up the hydraulic fluid, they noticed it was broken.”
The shoehorn-shaped part — about 3 inches wide and 8 inches long — is critical to the aircraft. It serves a role similar to a car’s shock absorber mount, but on a larger, and more important scale, helping to stop the jet’s rudder from vibrating in flight.
Kenning and his three-person crew couldn’t just order a replacement; the part was forged for this Stratotanker more than 60 years ago, and there was no surplus supply of rudder snubbers.
“This aircraft has been asked to fly a lot longer as originally planned. It was never meant to be in the Air Force this long.”
More:
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/05/the-2-pound-part-that-nearly-sent-a-kc-135r-stratotanker-to-the-scrapyard/
